I left the House at 1 am to make the drive to Reliance, Tennessee. Hikerboy had been on the trail around 10 days at that point and was taking a zero at Reliance waiting on me. We planned to hike a short day on Monday and I was glad we did. With 3 hours of sleep and 9 hours of driving anything more than the 10 miles we did would have killed me. Day one always sucks when you don’t train on hills. The first couple of miles were flat with great views of the Hiwassee River then the trail goes up with some really nice river views. We made camp at Coker creek. Hikerboy managed to find the one marshmallow to step in within 10 miles. He’s such a good manager he managed to step in it twice.